


Breaking the Fall

by asfragileasaword



Category: Marvel, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-06 16:37:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asfragileasaword/pseuds/asfragileasaword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Loki falls from the Bifrost, he lands on Earth instead of with the Chitauri. Rather than attacking New York, he decides to try and keep his head down so as not to draw attention from Asgard, and he starts a quiet new life. While Thor continues to mourn his brother, Loki tries to establish something for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will mainly just be sticking to the Marvel world, I think, except for this prologue here. Yggdrasil was a lot more in the mythology than it was in the Marvel universe, and I stole some of those ideas in writing this. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask me. And yes, I do plan on Thor, Jane, Darcy, etc. to have a large role in this fic. In fact, this MAY end up having Loki/Jane in it - I'm not sure yet. Also, all of my other chapters will be much longer than this - prologues for me are always short.
> 
> Thank you so, so much for reading. Enjoy! And please, don't forget to review!

Loki fell.

He fell and fell and fell and fell for so long that it almost felt like floating.

Falling, floating – it made no difference. No matter which, it was not going to end.

Not until he was dead.

He fell through Yggdrasil and its branches for what felt like an eternity. He knew, as many others did not, that it did not have just nine branches. Of course, there were the main nine, but that was not all. There were pathways and crevices in Yggdrasil that spidered down through its trunk and travelled through her roots; vines wrapped around its branches, containing the stars and heavens; hidden veins ran through its leaves and reached for higher parts unknown to any living being. For the great tree of life to be limited to but nine offshoots was absurd, as Loki had often said. Unfortunately, few had accepted such depths to their universe since the oldest of times. Now, Loki fell through Yggdrasil's trunk alone, cold, and exposed.

What he fell through was not meant for many living being's eyes. In the Tree, new stars opened their bright faces to the dark expanses of space. Dying stars burned crimson, their fiery light bathing all around them in blood. He passed fire, its greed burning up whole worlds. He passed ice and great glaciers, shining like precious gems, though there was no source of light to make them shine so. Up above him in the highest branches and leaves, the deep black rustled as ancient, terrible beasts, whose forms had always remained unseen, maneuvered through the wide expanses of space, as they had since the beginning of time.

Down, down Loki fell, through the cracks and webs of the tree, passing the gossamer strings of Time and Fate, which were weaving intricate tapestries that would put even Frigga's to shame. He fell through darkness and light. He fell through snow and wind. He fell down toward the very roots of Yggdrasil until he could almost feel the billowing breath of the wyrm that resided there, wrapped around the endless wandering fingers of the tree. The dragon slept, and would sleep, for all eternity, spurting occasional bouts of magma that immediately cooled into hardened earth and developed new life.

Loki noticed almost none of this. The Asgardians had long ago discovered what a poor decision it was to travel through Yggdrasil without the aid of a Bifrost, and Loki was now just experiencing what had not been felt for thousands upon thousands of years. Glacial, freezing air that howled through the dark battered him from all sides, tossing him through space and forming ice on his body, freezing his eyelashes and lips so that he could not cry a single tear or scream out in pain. And he was in pain – so much pain. The ice and wind alone cut his skin until it was ripped and torn, hanging from him like a ghastly garment. The biting cold dug down into his very bones until it reached his heart, stabbing at it until he could feel it nothing more than a dull ache. He often collided into rocks and debris floating through the air. At some times, his ears were assaulted by the screeches, howls, and hollow laughter of creatures made of stardust and murk, and they were hammered by complete, deafening silence at others. His blood floated freely out of his wounds, flowing around him and dissipating into the night, only for more to follow as his body attempted to heal itself in the most desolate and cruel of places.

He tried to avoid slamming into any of the _things_ that slinked lithely through the darkness of Yggdrasil's branches and sucked on its lifeblood, though he didn't have much control. He wasn't always successful - he was caught occasionally. And it was always what felt to be years before whatever slithering, oozing, clawed thing had caught him let him go. He never knew what they looked like - it was too dark in the Tree. They never killed him - they only ever tortured him. The creatures would slash at his ribcage; they would slide their tentacles over him and allow the teeth of their suckers to rip at his face, his eyes, his chest; they would take bites of him and save the rest for later. Over and over these disgusting things would violate, snap at, and snarl at him, leaving off only before he reached Death, and beginning again once he had healed. Sometimes they reached into him and pulled out his intestines and ate them until his body repaired itself. Sometimes they spat poison at him, boiling his tongue in acid.

The wounds they inflicted did not always end in blood and bone, either. Sometimes, their claws would slice at him and instead of blinding pain he would feel darkness fill him, or ice, or fire. Sometimes it was insanity that penetrated him, or blinding fear, or crippling thirst. It was during these sessions that he learned that not everything dealt in injuries of the physical kind - it was during this time that he learned that these different sorts of wounds were to be feared more. At the end of several years (by his reckoning, though he never really knew) they would let him continue his fall, though he never knew why. He never cared to learn either; some things did not need to be known. Though this only happened occasionally, it was enough to drive him to the brink of madness. If not madness, then perhaps just extreme exhaustion. The two seemed to be the same too often for him to tell them apart.

The fall never ended. Time was not the same where in Yggdrasil – it may not have existed at all. So Loki fell and floated and tumbled through the Great Tree for lifetimes – eons, centuries, eternities. A second could be an hour, or a day could be a minute; he really didn't know. All he knew was open space, darkness, slicing, slashing, breaking, and blood. He screamed for years, his cries ripping out of his throat and shattering the black in front of him, echoing off of emptiness and remaining unheard.

After ages and ages, the stars became cold to him and their silvery light only served as a lantern into the terrifying beyond. The slithering and clacking of invisible beasts ceased to inspire horror and instead inspired hope – hope for death. There was no way out but for it, and so it became his prayer. He prayed, sending his wish out into the void, for death, not expecting it to be answered, but praying nonetheless. However, though he whispered prayers and pleas in his mind, his screams continued of their own volition.

Once, for one beautiful, shattering moment, he heard his heart stutter and then stop. He let out a final breath, ready to embrace Death and enter Hel, only for his heart to start again. His anguish unleashed the shriek that finally destroyed his vocal chords.

No torture could compare to what he was enduring. No crime was worth this. Though he had travelled to other realms through his own secret pathways, none had involved wandering like this, alone and without defense through Yggdrasil. Thousands of times, Loki cursed himself for ever letting go of Thor. But what else was he to have done? Again and again, Odin's words played in his mind.

_No, Loki._

_No, Loki._

_No Loki No Loki No Loki No Loki No Loki No_

As Loki's damnation continued, his father's words ( _No, not his father, never his father_ ) became a constant drone, tormenting him just as much as the fall was. Odin's two words ( _Was he his father? Yes, of course. No, no he wasn't. But yes, he was. No!_ ) cut him deeper than any shard of ice or sharp claw had yet.

" _I could have done it, Father! I could have done it!"_

_I could have made you proud._

" _For you!"_

_Yes, for you, it's all for you, and it was for Thor, and it was for me –_

" _For all of us!"_

_It was all he could have done. He had been left behind, ignored, taunted, so often, but he could have done this. He should have. It was all he could do. It was all._

_It was the only thing that would have made them see._

_He had tried so hard. He had been running as fast as he could, running from the chaos he had created in his own mind, and running toward acceptance, recognition, the fruits of labor – anything. He had worked and planned and he knew he could do something. But the darkness that pursued him relentlessly had advanced too quickly, swallowing him whole, and no matter how frantic his efforts were, they would never mean anything. Nothing. That's all he had ever been, was nothing. But he had to make them_ see _._

_And then Odin – his father – (No, part of him screamed. Not your father. But everything else said yes. Yes he is) cut him down. With one word he ended everything._

" _No, Loki."_

_No._

_No, it meant nothing. No, he was worth_ nothing.

_No, Loki._

_No._

The memory grieved him and caused more pain than anything else ever could. All he could think was _no._

_No, Loki. No._

And so Loki fell interminably, the stars dancing around him in their cold, calculating waltz, the darkness pressing in, the ice piercing his skin, his father's words cutting his heart, and his soul weary of living.

But Death never took him.

Hela never opened Her arms to him.

Instead, after what felt to be eons and eons, his fall led him through the Tree, though he ignored his exact path, too tormented to notice anything but the pain. Eventually, after falling through branch after branch, floating through vein after vein, he slipped through one last crack, and with that, was gone from Yggdrasil for good.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thank you for the marvelous feedback on the story! It really means a lot to me.
> 
> Please don't forget to review. Thank you for reading, and enjoy!

"Ouch!"

Jane quickly set down the offending coffee mug that had just burned her tongue. Steam rose from the warm brown liquid, swirling into dissipation and seemingly taunting her. She huffed and ruffled her hair, still a rat's nest from bed. She hadn't been able to sleep a wink, and for some reason she had decided that coffee was the solution. And then she decided to take a sip of it as soon as it was done, not even bothering to wait for it to cool off. "Stupid," she muttered to herself. Stupid. Her mind had been in a bit of a daze, and she hadn't been thinking straight. Really, she hadn't been thinking straight for nearly two months. Not since Thor.

Thinking about him now, she frowned. He had said he'd come back. He had promised. So where was he? She liked to think that he was alive. At least, she hoped he was. She tried to reason that if he weren't alive, his brother probably would have sent the Destroyer or some soldiers or something to kill Darcy, Erik, and her. Well. Maybe. If they were important enough. But she was assuming that the crown prince's new sort of love interest would be important to a vindictive family member. So, holding on very hard to that belief, she assumed that Thor was alive, considering that she was still alive. Although, if he was alive, she was pretty sure she had the right to be upset at him. It had been two months. He had left her hanging, and now she wasn't sure what to think.

Of course, he could have been very busy. Princes did have things to do – royal duties and such. She was sure he was just swimming in responsibilities and council meetings and horseback rides with fair maidens. Right.

Or maybe she didn't mean all that much to him. Not enough to come back, anyway. They had only known each other for three days, which was hardly enough time to form a lasting bond. Maybe he didn't think that a budding romance was worth travelling all the way back to Earth for. She couldn't say she blamed him, if that were the case. She knew that she didn't _love_ him; but was it that wrong to care about him? She didn't think so. She just wanted to see him again and make sure everything was alright. If something happened between them from there, then great. If not – well, at least she could say that he had been the friendliest and most attractive man she had ever been fortunate enough to kiss.

What was keeping her awake and jostling around in her mind more than Thor were all of the new possibilities. Travel across immense areas of space in just seconds had been proven to be possible; intelligent life outside of Earth had been proven to exist; magic itself (or, as she liked to think of it, _science she just didn't understand yet_ ) had been proven to exist. She just wanted to get her hands on some of it, any of it, anything at all, and start digging. She wanted to learn about it and ask questions and poke and prod until she understood it. She wanted nothing more than to do something with what she had just learned – the World Tree, the Bifrost, Norse gods.

However, to even think about learning anymore, she needed Thor. She needed to hear what he knew. So, here she was, bleary-eyed, with knotted hair and a smarting tongue, standing in her kitchen at one in the morning, staring blankly at a wall and hoping for a miracle to drop in so that she could continue to research what she absolutely could not work with or learn about on her own.

Shaking herself a bit, she shuffled over to the couch beside the huge windows that lined her entire workspace. She had left her trailer when she determined that sleep was not in her near future that night. She didn't even know why she even tried to sleep in there anymore; she almost always ended up curled up in a ball on the couch she was sitting on now, surrounded by piles of notes and cold mugs of coffee. She practically lived in her lab space. She had toyed with the idea of just selling the trailer and moving into the lab for good, but it was too depressing. It would probably be taken as a sign that she was giving up on life and just committing herself to an arduous life of constant drudgery – at least, that's how Darcy would put it. Darcy was very adamant that Jane try to not work too much, although Jane rarely listened. The work was pretty much all she cared about, despite the fact that she was currently at a dead end without a space-travelling alien teacher to guide her.

Oh well. She doubted Thor's knowledge on space and magic would have been enough for her anyway. She got the feeling that, as sweet and caring and sunny as he may be, he wasn't really one for books and learning. Maybe he could just take her to Asgard to study there when he got back.

_If_ he got back.

With a sigh, she flopped onto her back and stared out the window moodily. It was completely black outside, with barely a shimmer of stars to keep her company. She wished that she could go onto the roof, but it had gotten too cold for that.

_Wait._

What was that?

She scooted off the couch and padded closer to the window, peering out. There was a flash of light bolting down the sky, but it looked different from a shooting star. It was…bluer. And it was moving too slowly. She looked over to the main counter where most of her instruments (yes, SHIELD actually returned them, finally) were beeping softly. They weren't going crazy like they had during the Bifrost storms, but they were reacting to whatever was falling. That was good enough for her.

She was out the door the next minute, shoes and coat on, hair still wild. She rushed to the van and quickly hopped in, starting it and heading toward the falling light. She didn't bother waking Darcy or Erik – if this was what she hoped it was, then she'd rather they weren't around. If it wasn't – well. She had a very large van that had injured the god of thunder himself several times. She was pretty sure she could handle it.

She drove for a while. Soon, she couldn't see the light anymore, and assumed it had landed. Well, hopefully landed. If it was Thor, he would have been able to land. If it wasn't Thor, then it had probably crashed, which was fine by her. She was pretty sure that she was too tired to deal with a not-Thor, even if it turned out to be inanimate.

The site wasn't that difficult to find. It had definitely crashed ( _Dammit,_ she thought), and the dust cloud it had created was still lingering when she drove by it. She pulled off the road and into the dry sand and dust, parking next to the semi-crater that the thing had made. After seeing that, she was pretty sure that she had driven all the way out just to see a rock. How incredibly disappointing.

Jane climbed out of her van, coughing from the dust and waving her hand to dispel it. She stumbled over a few loose stones walking over to the small crater. If this was something that was going to bring in more SHIELD agents, she was moving to a new state.

Oh god. It was.

Jane gasped and turned away, her stomach rolling. Down in the newly made shallow hole, there was not a rock as she had been expecting, but a man.

Barely.

She hadn't seen him for very long, but what she had seen made her want to vomit. He was almost completely naked, with strips of cloth hanging onto his limbs. His skin was slashed, sliced, cut, torn, ripped – oh, everywhere. All over, his body was covered in cuts, some as small as paper cuts, some the length of her arm, and most bleeding. And at his stomach…Well, the flesh wasn't there. It was just…open. She really, really didn't want to look inside the hollow area of where that crucial part of his torso had been ripped off. The thought made her gag into the sand. Tears formed in her eyes and one escaped, rolling down her face.

She was halfway through dialing SHIELD's number to tell them to come dispatch the horrific (probably alien) corpse _now_ – because she wasn't sure that she could handle moving it and they would probably be thrilled to get their hands on it anyway – when she heard the body shift. It was only slightly, but it was a quiet night, and nothing else was making a sound, so she definitely heard it. Then she heard a soft cry – more of a sob – and a gasp from the crater, before everything was silent again.

So.

Not dead then.

She peered over the edge of the hole to look down at him again. She tried not to look too closely at much of anything else except – yes, his chest was rising slightly. Barely, but it was.

It was his small cry that broke her. She snapped her phone shut, because she really could not willingly hand over a live man to a secret government organization without his consent first, bit her lip, and slipped down into the crater.

Up close he looked even worse. The ends of his fingers were bloody, and several of them were missing their nails. The tips of his ears and nose were frozen and frosted over with ice, as were his eyebrows and eyelashes. There was a frozen trail down his cheek – maybe tears. She had no clue how they could have turned to ice, but they had. The gashes that covered every inch of him looked terrible from so close up – she could see where the skin had ripped and smell the metallic blood. And then – _oh_ – there was the missing skin from his stomach. It looked like it had all just been ripped off, even the muscles, by something with claws, because it was not a clean cut. There were shredded ribbons of his skin hanging down inside of him. _Inside of him_. She could see his intestines…and a glimpse of his ribcage…and the smell was just –

Jane had to turn away and take a few deep breaths before she could face him again.

Somehow this man's heart was still beating. Somehow he was still breathing. She at least owed it to his persistence to try and help him.

Ducking her head and scrunching her shoulders, she slowly shuffled over to the still body. She stood there for a moment, contemplating how to actually move him and just what on earth she was actually going to do with him, when his eyes slowly blinked open. She didn't notice until she heard his sharp intake of breath.

"Oh! Um…" she said, kneeling by his head. "I-it's going to be okay," she continued in a quiet voice, trying to keep it as steady as she could. As much as his condition made her stomach churn, it tugged at her sympathy even more. He looked terrified. His eyes darted everywhere, never landing on anywhere or seeming to see her, and his breaths started to come in short gasps.

"Shhh. Shhhh," she whispered, trying to soothe him. Chewing on her lip, she tentatively reached a shaking hand down to his head. She stroked his hair once. He didn't seem to notice and didn't move or react at all, even though a chunk of his hair came out of his head and into her hand. She shuddered and dropped it immediately.

She scooted over and hung her head over his, forcing him to look at her. He seemed to see right through her. "Hey, can you speak? Can you tell me your name, or where you're from…?" She trailed off, unsure of what to do next. She just ended up sitting beside him for a few minutes, not saying a word, just listening as his heart frantically tried to keep him alive and tearing up at just how awful it all was.

_Why do you always get yourself into the worst situations?_ She chastised herself. _Just call SHIELD. They might know what to do, and you definitely don't. And he needs help! If you don't find him help, he will probably die, and –_

Her internal monologue was interrupted with a soft, "W – wh – ?"

Her eyes snapped to his face. He was looking at her now, blinking rapidly. She couldn't believe that he had the energy to even keep his eyes open, let alone to blink. He let out another sound that sounded to be little more than air escaping from his mouth. "Whe – ?"

"What?" she asked him. He didn't answer (she didn't think he could). "What? Where?" she guessed. ""Where are you?"

Hid head barely twitched. She took that as a nod.

"It's ok," she soothed. "Shhhhh. Everything is going to be okay. You're on Earth – you know, Midgard?"

He let out a quiet groan and shut his eyes again. She decided that the groan was for the pain rather than for where he had landed – she hoped. "Hey," she said firmly. "No. Open your eyes. C'mon. You gotta keep your eyes open."

He slowly lifted one lid. If his face had been slightly less covered in blood, she was pretty sure that she would've been able to see that he was glaring at her. Great. She had an unfriendly zombie on her hands.

"Alright, none of that," she said. "Come on. We have to get you up. You need a hospital – I mean, a healing room. Or whatever." _And somehow we have to keep you internal organs from falling out of your body as we get you to my car. And then we have to explain to the doctors what happened and why probably none of you resembles something human._

She should have called SHIELD. They were jerks, but they would have been able to help. Maybe she still could call them. She reached into her pocket and brought out her phone.

She hadn't even pressed the first two numbers when a skeletal, bloody hand reached up and grabbed her wrist. She had to bring her other hand up to muffle her scream.

The man had both of his eyes open now, and he was definitely glaring at her. He shook his head, and his movements were much stronger now. His grip on her wrist was strong as well – it was getting tighter the longer he held on.

"No," he whispered. "No – one – else." His speaking sounded labored, but it was definitely improved from one minute ago. She tried not to let that weird her out.

"You need help," she told him. "And I can't give you any. I don't know anything about medicine."

He mumbled something indiscernible. She leaned closer. "Sorry, what?"

"Will – heal," he breathed. "Will – heal – on – own."

Jane frowned. That wasn't believable at all. She could see his _organs_.

…But how would anyone else be able to help him? She didn't know if doctors could. By all rights, he should've already been dead. She was almost positive that a doctor wouldn't know what to do to fix him. SHIELD probably couldn't either – they'd most likely just poke at him until he was dead.

Maybe injuries on other planets were different. Maybe this wasn't that abnormal. Thor had _died_ before he had come back and completely obliterated the Destroyer. That meant that maybe this wasn't so bad. Or maybe it just meant that he really would just heal by himself. From what she remembered of Thor, he had been a fast healer – the marks her van had left on him had been gone within an hour. She wasn't sure if this man was the same species as Thor, but if he was, then he might be able to fix himself over time.

With no other options and her mind made up, she nodded. "Right," she said. "Okay. Let's get you up then."

He squinted at her and dropped her wrist. "I – said – "

"I know what you said," she replied. "And I'm going to respect your wishes. If you think that you can heal this better than a doctor, then I'll believe you. But you can't stay here. It's not safe – there are animals out here that could hurt you while you're weak, and the dirt could get in your wounds and give you an infection. You're coming home with me."

She was pretty sure he sighed. She propped an arm under his back, slowly pushing him to sit up and trying not to gag as his blood ran down the sleeve of her coat. Luckily, once he was in a sitting position, he put his arms over the stomach area. She didn't know what he was doing, but nothing vital was falling out, so she shrugged and just decided to roll with it. It's not like her life could get any weirder anyway.

Looking back, she wasn't exactly sure how he got him to the van. She eventually got him to stand, but she had to support nearly all of his weight, making her sweat and wish that she went to the gym more. There was a lot of stumbling and falling and crawling involved. By the time she managed to pull him out of his shallow crater, her legs and arms were shaking violently and she had to sit for a moment before carrying (dragging) him to the van. She might have hit his head on something as she helped him lower onto the floor of the vehicle. She was almost certain that he didn't want to come with her, but fighting her probably would have taken more energy than allowing her to take him with her. Besides, his strength had improved more in the past twenty minutes than she had ever thought possible, so maybe he'd be able to leave her in a few days.

The ride back was a bit of a blur too. She didn't speak, and the only sounds he made were to let out a hiss of pain as he was jostled in the back. Somehow she was able to get him inside her lab, although it took a good ten or fifteen minutes. He was unbelievably heavy for someone so thin and with only half his flesh.

She left him on the kitchen floor and scooted her old cold coffee away to make room for anything she might need. She grabbed her first aid kit, some paper towels, rags, ice, and lots of water. He'd said he's heal it himself, she knew, but that didn't mean she couldn't try to help him along.

She tried to dab at his wounds, but there were too many, and he hissed at her every time she tried to touch them. Finally she just threw all of her gathered supplies his way with a grunted, "Have at it then," and scooted away from him to lean against her cabinets. She had already gotten him out of the elements, and he was being incredibly rude towards any of her attempts to help, so she left him to it so that he could do it his own way. Besides, she was too tired and way too grumpy to deal with poor-mannered zombie aliens.

Thus, she ended up just sitting on her cold kitchen floor, watching a breathing corpse try to wipe himself clean of blood and slowly cover himself in all the bandages she could find, plus some rags when the bandages ran out. He never spoke, and neither did she. She was able to look at him more easily once his torso was wrapped, but he still looked like hell, and was beginning to resemble a mummy more than a zombie.

She didn't know how long she sat there, watching her strange and creepy guest. She probably should have been scared for her safety or something, but it never crossed her mind. He could still barely move – just wiping and wrapping his arm took him nearly an hour. His slow, pained movements were sort of hard to watch, and she ended up feeling more pity than fear. She wondered what on earth could have done such a thing to him, and waffled between being desperate to know and thinking that some things didn't have to be known.

She decided to forgive him for his rudeness for the night. If she had taken even a quarter of his injuries, she would have been even worse, she was sure.

Eventually her eyes began to droop as her lids grew more and more heavy. Her new space mummy-zombie glanced at her occasionally, but still didn't speak. It grew quieter and quieter, and the blackness of the night still didn't let up. The silence of the quiet lab and the desert night finally enveloped her, and she drifted off to sleep beside the nearly-corpse on her blood-stained kitchen floor.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Sorry this update took so long. I couldn't decide which direction I wanted to take it. I still don't know if I'm pleased with it. You all will just have to let me know.
> 
> Once again, thank you for reading, and please, enjoy!

Loki awoke with a headache that pounded as though the Fire Giants of Muspelheim themselves had stomped around in his brain. He was still for a moment before slowly attempting to lift his heavy head and opening his eyes. Blinding sunlight filtered in through the tall windows that lined the room he was in, and the brightness stabbed at his eyes, worsening the condition of his head.

He groaned and allowed himself to fall back on the lumpy cushion he had rested on through the night. He lay there, stiff and unmoving, and more and more of his body began to ache. As he gained more awareness, his wounds began to prickle sharply, the pain increasing the longer he remained motionless.

Eventually every cut, laceration, and gaping hole was burning like the fires of Hel. From his feet to the crown of his head, every tear in his skin screamed out from beneath their bindings. Those that he could not cover, such as those on his face and shoulders, caused him even greater suffering, their sharp stabs of pain soon becoming a constant thrum of agony as they had nothing to protect them from a rub against cloth or a brush of air. That which was in the direst pain was his stomach, though he tried not to think on that particular injury. He clenched his teeth together in an attempt not to shout out, although some air did escape in a hiss occasionally. With creaking joints in his fingers, he balled his hands into shaking fists, trying to just focus on breathing and getting through the pain minute by minute.

Eyes still closed, he tried to ignore what he was feeling and thought over the events of the night before. He had heard others mention before the confusion that often ascended them when they awoke in an unfamiliar place. He had never felt such disorientation upon opening his eyes to a new room, and he felt none now. He remembered exactly where he was, although some of his memories of the how he had gotten into this exact position were blurred and insubstantial.

He remembered falling – that would have been rather hard to forget. At one moment, he had been drifting through the Void, and at the next, he was plummeting towards a wide expanse of ground. He remembered marveling at being able to see for the first time in ages, for despite the night that had come over the planet he had fallen to, no night could compare to the utter blackness he had been trapped in for so long.

He remembered trying to scream and not being able to hear any sound that came from his mouth. He remembered the fierce wind billowing in his ears, roaring as he sped downwards. He remembered feeling as though the entire world had lit on fire, his skin and what little left of his clothing he had smoking and burning. He did not remember his landing – he thought that maybe he'd blacked out before he had touched earth. Or perhaps it was just too painful to truly allow himself to think on it.

Whatever the case, he knew that the next thing he remembered about his fateful deliverance from Yggdrasil was a sky full of stars and a voice – the mortal girl's voice. It had been a shaking voice, as it well should have been, but he had managed to gather that he was on Midgard. As appalling as that may have been to him back when he was on Asgard, now the planet's name was akin to good tidings, for it indicated that he was out of the Void. Truly, he was quite pleased to be anywhere but there.

Thinking of Midgard and the girl who had tried to help him, he again opened his eyes and, once adjusted to the initial brightness, allowed them to observe the area he was in. He recalled the girl taking him back to her place of living, which was where he rested now. The room he was in was in complete disarray, with sheets of paper flung about every which way and a stack of soiled plates on the small table beside his make-shift bed. He was on some beige, poorly-made…chaise lounge, he supposed. Were he in better condition, he would have huffed in indignation at being shoved onto such unsuitable furniture. As it was, it had been he who had put himself here after he had tended to his wounds; he would not have had himself sleep on the floor, as his uncivilized hostess had done.

He tried shifting but was forced to stop, grunting in pain as his injuries screamed. He relaxed back into his previous position and sighed. He would not be able to remove himself from where he was for quite a while, nor could he search for the girl who had helped him.

A sharp stab of pain made its presence known. He gasped and clenched his eyes shut.

When the girl came to him, he doubted that he would be able to do much but to stop himself from screaming out.

* * *

Jane woke up with stiff limbs and a funny taste in her mouth. Her back ached and she felt like someone was pressing down on her brain with a brick. With a moan, she plopped back down onto her bed, only to shoot back up with an indignant cry of pain.

She wasn't in her bed – she was on the floor. What on earth…?

Oh. Right. Alien-mummy-zombie man thing.

Had she really fallen asleep on her kitchen floor – _while a strange man was in her home_?

She was so glad Erik wasn't with her at the moment. He never would have let her hear the end of it. Gah, she had been so _stupid._

She sat up and brought her knees to her chest, holding her hand to her head. The danger from falling asleep beside a possibly hostile alien aside, it had been a really bad thing to do anyway. She was pretty sure that she was going to have a crick in her neck for the next two weeks.

Sighing, she let her hand fall. Her kitchen was a mess. There were brown blood stains smeared all over the tiles, and scraps of bandages and Band-Aids were scattered across the countertops. _That blood is going to be ridiculously hard to get out_ , she thought. _It's bad enough that there were already coffee stains, but this is just –_

Oh. _Oh._

She had woken up a bit more, and her brain had finally caught up to her. She suddenly realized –

_Where was he?_

She allowed herself a small curse as she stumbled to her feet. He sure as hell wasn't sitting on the dried pool of blood where she'd last seen him, and he wasn't sitting at the table. If she had lost her closest bet to hearing news about Thor and learning more about Yggdrasil, she was going to lose it.

Jane took a deep breath and edged out of the kitchen. _Thank god._ He was asleep on the sofa. She let out a breath she hadn't even realized she's been holding in. She didn't even know why she had been so worried – it wasn't like he could have gotten very far with his organs spilling out. He was still wrapped up in bandages and looked a bit like King Tut. If he wasn't so badly hurt, and if she wasn't still wary of him, she'd have giggled. Not wanting to wake him, she turned to shuffle quietly back into the kitchen.

A groan stopped her. She turned back around. For the first time, she noticed his clenched fists and the taut lines of his body. He wasn't asleep – he was in serious pain.

He opened his eyes slowly. He shifted them to look at her, standing frozen and staring at him. They were both silent.

"Um, hi," Jane said finally.

He gave her a terse nod. She wondered if doing even that hurt him.

"Can I get you anything?" she asked. He just looked at her. "Some water?" she continued. "Or food? Or maybe some medicine?"

She waited for a few minutes. He stayed perfectly still. He wasn't even looking at her anymore. She nodded slowly and turned to leave the room.

"If you would be so kind," a voice said suddenly. She jumped and turned back around. His eyes were on her again. "I would greatly appreciate some water."

His voice was tense and hoarse. She was pretty sure that speaking wasn't necessarily the easiest thing for him at the moment.

It took her a second to respond, which she sounded ridiculously stupid doing. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I'll – um – I'll get you a glass." She eyed him. "Are you sure you don't want anything else? You look like you're still really hurt. I've got some pain pills in the bathroom."

He squinted. "I take it that these 'pain pills' are your Midgardian form of medicine," he said.

"Uh, yeah."

"No, thank you," he said, and his mouth managed to curve itself into some sort of wry smile. She wasn't really sure how he could smile – the cuts on his face stretched painfully when he did. "I doubt that anything you have could assist me."

Jane blinked. "Oh. Right. Okay. Well, um, I'll get you that water now."

"If it would not be too much trouble."

"Oh, no. None at all."

"Then thank you."

Jane allowed herself a small shaky breath while she was in the kitchen. This was almost a bit too weird for her. The guy who fell from the sky the night before, who could barely form a sentence, had just spoken more eloquently than she'd heard in a while. Sure, he still didn't look like he could move very much, and his voice was restrained and weak, but whatever. He should have been dead. Not moving was better than not breathing.

She walked back to him and delivered the water, but he didn't look at her. She sat beside him on the floor for nearly half an hour, waiting, but he didn't move or speak at all.

She waited a bit longer. Nothing.

She didn't know why – maybe it hurt, or maybe he physically couldn't – but he didn't say anything.

He didn't say anything for the rest of the day.

* * *

He didn't speak the next day either.

Or the next day.

He stayed lying on her couch and just stared out the window. She tried goading him with food and water. She asked what his name was, where he was from, if she could do anything to help him. There was no reaction.

She made her excuses to Erik and Darcy about why they couldn't visit her. She didn't remember what it was, but they bought it. They didn't bother her.

She spent most of her time piddling on her computer and messing with equations she had already re-written far too many times. Her work had come to a standstill a few weeks after Thor left, and she couldn't make anything work with the new information he'd given her. Well, she didn't think she could. She just didn't know enough about it, and it was starting to drive her off the wall. Uncooperative work wasn't good for her health.

When the work got too frustrating, she left it to sit beside her creepy alien-mummy guest. She found his silence to be tranquil sometimes, and it took her mind off of everything that was going wrong – Thor, her work, and her ever inadequate knowledge about the workings of the universe. Of course, the very thing that took her mind off of all of that was a problem as well. If King Tut (her new name for him – she couldn't just call him _alien-mummy-zombie_ all the time) didn't start responding soon, then she wasn't sure what she was going to do.

On a brighter note, based on what little skin she could actually see, he did actually look like he was healing. The cuts and burns on his face were fading rapidly – much more rapidly than she had thought possible. The tips of his fingers were growing skin back over the bones. The ice had melted off, and the parts it had touched were no longer black and rotting.

Despite this, his eyes continued to stare straight ahead, and he did not speak.

She tried not to let herself get creeped out by him. Even though he served as a nice calming presence during the day, at night her mind wandered. Nighttime tends to do that to most people's minds, she figured, but she really didn't need it. Unfortunately, she couldn't stop herself from getting chills at the sight of his still body, wrapped as though for a funeral. With his unmoving pale eyes, blank face, and horrific scars, he truly looked dead. There was something dark about him as well. She would have laughed about the thought in the daytime, but in the dark, ghosts come alive and the crazy doesn't seem crazy anymore. Something about her guest was dangerous, and it lurked just below the surface of his stone face. She tried not to think about it, and, for the most part, she succeeded.

Aside from that, it was frustrating, just sitting around day after day, faced with problems that she couldn't solve. The silence got to her by the fourth day – she finally blasted the sound on her television, relatively sure that it wouldn't bother King Tut. She was right. He stayed seemingly oblivious.

By the fifth day he had refused to even glance at her, she had gotten antsy. She needed to get out of her lab if she was going to stay sane. She _knew_ that he could talk. He had spoken to her quite a bit before. She just needed him to do it again so that she could be sure that he wasn't dying or anything.

At lunchtime, she cracked. She told her unresponsive guest that she was going to go grab some lunch. To be polite, she asked if he would like anything.

His eyes didn't even flicker in her direction.

With a sigh, she walked out the front door and into the sunlight.

* * *

Okay, she wasn't going to lie. She kind of expected King Tut to be sitting up and waiting for her when she got back, like some big surprise. That always happened in the books, right? The person comes back, expecting to see the other character still in a coma or something, but instead they were sitting or standing or being just generally awake.

Yeah. That wasn't the case this time.

She walked through the door home after a satisfying meal at the diner down the road, and it was still dead quiet. Even though her absence had been a perfect opportunity for her silent companion to have moved or run away or rearranged her furniture or sung an aria, he was in the exact same position as he had been before she left, and he didn't look like he'd moved.

Great.

The rest of her day was uneventful. Laundry, doodling, television – she hadn't been so unproductive since her freshman year of college. She sighed a lot, and looked out the window a lot, and glared resentfully at King Tut occasionally. That was about all there was to do to pass the time.

After an unhealthy dinner of Poptarts, which made her miss Thor more than she had for a while, she found herself sitting at her computer, staring uncomprehendingly at a chart that she could have sworn had made sense only just that morning. She just started drifting off in front of the screen when she heard it.

Someone had coughed.

She sat up so fast that she knocked over a stack of papers sitting beside her monitor. Was he – ?

Yes. Yes he was. There was a groan.

Like a bullet from a gun, she shot out of her chair and raced to the couch.

His head was up. He was looking around. He was _awake_.

She stopped short. He had been pretty polite the last time they'd spoken, but she didn't want to risk it. What if he'd decided he was done with all of this and just killed her and left?

The rational side of her brain told her she was being ridiculous and that he probably would have a hard time standing, much less killing her. The less rational side of her brain wasn't really listening.

So she stood, frozen, and watched as he – slowly and achingly – sat upright. It took him a full minute and a half to get fully up and settled into the cushions. Watching his pained movements made her slightly less afraid.

He frowned and looked around. That was when he finally saw her.

Neither one of them spoke.

Finally, he said something – he used his voice and _said something_. "I am terribly sorry for that," he said. His voice was smooth this time, not rough. "I wasn't feeling too well. I had to take care of a few things."

It took her a minute to find her voice. "You…had to take care…of a few things?"

"Yes," he said. This time he gave her a tiny smile. She couldn't decide if the smile put her on edge because there might have been something disturbing beneath it or because of the ghoulish picture it painted, with his fresh pink scars stretching on his face. "The pain was immense, I'm afraid. I had to do something about it."

She just nodded. Now that he was awake, she didn't really know what to say.

"I hate to ask, but is that offer for water still available?" he asked.

She was becoming more and more wary by the second. He was being _too_ polite. But she didn't have a choice other than to go with it. That was what she had signed on for anyway.

"Yeah," she replied. "Let me get you a glass."

"The cup from earlier will be perfectly adequate, thank you."

"Um…The cup from earlier had to be washed. Sorry. I'll get you a new one."

He frowned again and looked out the window. "It's night…" he murmured. "I worked for a longer amount of time than I had wanted to."

Wait. Did he think – ? "Um, sir?" Jane said. Something told her that he probably wouldn't appreciate the nickname she'd given him. "For exactly how long had you meant to…be gone?"

"Only a few hours," he said. "I did not expect the sun to be down when I was finished."

Jane let out a nervous laugh. "Oh…Listen, I don't know how to tell you this…"

His gaze on her sharpened. "Yes?"

"You were kind of out for – for a while. Um, listen, you were really banged up, and you probably needed every second of that time, but – "

"How long was I gone?" His voice was hard. It wasn't a question – it was a demand for an answer.

"…Five days."

She braced herself for an explosion, but it never came. Instead, his head sunk into his bandaged hands. "Five days," she heard him mutter. "Five days. Five days."

She suddenly went from being mildly terrified of him to sympathetic. He painted a pitiful picture, curled up on her couch and holding his head. She shook her head at herself, certain that she had finally lost it. Then she sank down onto the floor beside the sofa. She didn't say anything - she just sat with him.

After a little while, he lifted his head and offered her another small smile. This one wasn't as bad as the first. "I'm terribly sorry," he said. "It just wasn't supposed to take that long. I've grown weak."

She shrugged. "Your body needed five days, so it took five days to heal itself. Don't worry about it. I mean, did you have to be anywhere or do anything urgent?"

He was quiet for another minute. Then he shook his head.

"Okay, so, you're good," Jane told him. "Your strength will build back up, I'm sure."

He eyed her. He didn't seem overly curious – his face was too hard to read to say that. But mildly interested may have been a good way to put it. "You do not seem overly alarmed by any of this," he said. "You have not asked me how I healed so quickly, or where I fell from."

"Yeah, well," Jane shrugged, trying not too look to shaken up that he'd noticed. "I'm used to weird."

"Is that so." He did not look too pleased by the prospect. "We shall have to discuss that at another time."

She nodded. She decided she wasn't all that scared that he would kill her anymore. Wary, yes – scared, no.

"Look," she said. "Let's start it out right this time. Hi, I'm Jane Foster. Midgard. Astrophysicist. You?"

He was quiet again. She worried that she had scared him off. Then: "Hello, Ms. Foster. My name is Freyr. Vanaheim. Envoy to Asgard."

She nodded. "Nice to meet you, Freyr." He nodded back.

She hoped that he had enough strength to talk a bit longer. They had a lot to discuss.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you all so, so much for reading and reviewing my story - every alert I get just makes my day! You're all wonderful!
> 
> A few notes about the story now. I think that I have decided that I am going to make it Loki/Jane. If that doesn't float your boat, then I'm terribly sorry, and I will be perfectly understanding if you stop reading the story. It will take a while though - once Loki figures out how to not be a jerk all the time, they'll be friends for most of the story, I think. We'll see where the whole thing takes us.
> 
> Sorry, once again, about the length. The chapters will get longer the farther into the story we get, I promise.
> 
> Once again, thank you so much for reading! If you like it, please review! Enjoy!

Jane tried not to let the silence linger, despite not actually knowing quite what to say yet.

"Okay," she began. "I know that this may not be fair, considering you're the injured party here, but do you mind if I start the questioning? I'm not saying that I don't trust you, but I'd feel a lot better about having you in my home if I knew more about…well, you, I guess."

Her guest nodded with a grimace. His hands were clenching the cushions. Noticing, she added, "And if you get too tired or the pain gets too bad, you should stop speaking, of course."

He nodded again. She hoped that he wouldn't notice how nervous she was – it wasn't every day that she had to interrogate an alien. She tried to keep herself calm.

"Freyr…It's a nice name," she complimented awkwardly.

He bobbed his head in thanks. She fidgeted with her fingers for a moment. Not knowing why she said it, she blurted, "Um – look, I really don't know where I need to start with this. I guess – "

"How about," he interjected, "I tell you my story, and you ask what you need to know from there." His voice was still rough, but his eyes were hard. Despite wanting to stay in control of the situation, Jane found herself nodding.

He took a breath. "I gather that you know of the Nine Realms, though exactly how you do is beyond my understanding." He looked pointedly at her, but she refused to open her lips. She wouldn't tell him that she knew Thor until she had decided whether or not he was trustworthy. His stare was icy and hard. Somehow, he managed to look intimidating despite the bandages.

"My tale is a simple one," he continued. "I hail from Vanaheim, which you probably already know of, knowing of Asgard." She nodded. She vaguely remembered that as one of the realms that Thor had mentioned to her. She'd written them all down in her notebook, though the names were almost meaningless to her.

"I was a scholar there," he said. "A scholar of magic, history, literature, and politics. I was a strategist, a sorcerer, an advisor. I was deemed a good choice to serve as one of Vanaheim's envoys to Asgard some two hundred years ago."

Jane started at the words, openly staring. "Wait," she interrupted. "How _old_ are you?"

He frowned at her. "Much older than you, in your fragile Midgardian form, could ever hope to be."

"Yeah, got that. But how old are you exactly?"

"Why does it matter?"

"Because I'm curious. And because I wanted to ask you some questions, and this is one of them." She wondered if asking someone their age was rude in Vanaheim. She sure hoped not.

He sniffed. "I am almost two thousand years old, if you must know."

She rocked back. "Whoa."

He turned his cold stare on her.

"I mean," she said, trying to recover, "not that you're _old_ , but that just seems so old compared to, you know, a Midgardian lifespan." She internally winced. She was coming across as a complete idiot.

"I am not old," he said evenly. "I am quite young. In fact, I was the youngest to ever be chosen for my position."

"Huh," was all she said. She couldn't help but think about Thor. She had known that he wasn't human and that he had been a deity a long time ago. But she hadn't _really_ thought about it. She hadn't really contemplated what that meant about him. That sort of thing just hadn't crossed her mind. _How old was Thor?_ Was he older than Freyr? Younger? How long could he live?

If he were to come back and start something with her (which she wouldn't be that opposed to), would they be able to have a relationship? Clearly age had not affected his mannerisms, but if he was thousands of years old too, then it could affect other things. Like how long he could stay with her. Or how many girls he'd had swooning at him before. Oh – what if he came back and everything went really well and then she couldn't stay with him because she'd age and he wouldn't, like in those terrible penny novels in the back of the bookstores?

A cleared throat caught her attention. She sheepishly turned back to Freyr. Now wasn't the time to be thinking about any of that. It was a problem for another day. "Sorry," she apologized. "Please, continue."

She couldn't tell if he was humored by her or if he thought her insufferable. His face was really hard to read. It wasn't completely blank, as one would expect, although she had already seen that look on him a few times. This one was more difficult to dissect. The emotions on it were subtle, but they were such a mix that she couldn't tell anything from his expression.

"There is not much more to tell, Miss Foster," he said. "I served Vanaheim to the best of my abilities and made a home of sorts in Asgard. I continued my studies. I did what was required of me and acted as a mediator between the two powers, serving on councils, attending meetings, and so forth."

He paused. "Yes?" she prompted.

"Then, there was an accident on the Bifrost," he said. "A fight broke out there. It was too chaotic. I fell. I drifted through Yggdrasil. I landed here." Another pause. "And that is all there is to my story, Miss Foster."

What? "No," she said. "No way. You are not going to give me more detail about your _job_ than you are about what actually happened to you."

He blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

She waved her hand. "I get it, you were a beautiful little magic patriot who was super good at what he did. But you're avoiding the subject with all that."

"Oh, yes?" he said, lifting an eyebrow. She had always been so jealous of people who could do that.

"Yes," she insisted. "What made you fall? How did falling from the Bifrost put you into Yggdrasil? How on earth did you get so hurt? How long did you fall? How are you not dead if you essentially floated through the universe? How did you land on Midgard?"

His already hard to read expression hardened. If possible, he looked even more closed off. His face grew sharper. If not for the pink and red scars decorating his face, he would have looked as though he were carved from ice. "You said that you needed to know more about me to feel safe in my presence," he replied, slightly too harsh for Jane's liking. "I have provided you with sufficient background knowledge on my origins. What else could the details of my fall contribute to your judge of my character? Am I not _worthy_ enough for you?" He sneered the word "worthy" as though it were a foul joke.

"Your small Midgardian mind," he all but spat, "does not need to know of my sufferings. Please take your trivial questions elsewhere; I do not wish to be bothered by them."

If he had been hard to read before, he was almost impossible now. He was staying guarded. She tried to fight down her anger. Even though she had flung a few questions at him, he had no right to respond to them that way. She had been right the night she had brought him to her home – he was rude. His pretty words only went so far to cover that.

Despite her annoyance at how he had just spoken to her, she understood that she couldn't just snap back at him. He was in a lot of pain, in a strange place, and had just gone through a great ordeal. The excuse wouldn't last forever, but for now, it would have to do. If she wanted him to respond to her, she was going to have to be gentle and understanding – at least for the night. She took a deep breath and pushed down the retort she wanted to fling back into his face.

"Listen," she said as calmly as she could, "I understand that this is difficult and that you don't want to share everything right now. I can respect that. But please try to refrain from snapping at me again." At his curt nod, she went on. "I expect the full story later. You will tell me what I want to know if you expect to continue staying here. However, I won't push for it tonight. Can we agree on that?" She hadn't been so nervous in a long time. She felt like she had just berated this almost-god as though he were her five year old cousin.

Freyr did not speak for a long time. She continued to sit on the floor beside him, even though it grew to feel awkward very quickly.

"My apologies," he eventually murmured. "I was not thinking."

"Apology accepted." She stood. She was pretty sure that their little party was over. "I'll let you rest some more. I'm sure your body needs it to heal, and it's late."

She made it two steps before being stopped.

"No, Miss Foster," he said. His voice was polite again, but tense and strained. "Stay, if you will. You had questions for me, I believe? Surely I have not yet answered all you could have had."

She looked back at him. It was a nice attempt at trying to patch things back together, but she wasn't biting. "That's a nice offer Freyr. But we're both tired and you're still hurt. I think a conversation would go much more smoothly tomorrow. I know you have questions for me too, and I promise, I'll answer them. But for now, let's just go to sleep."

His face still impossible to get a grasp on, he nodded, and she left the room, turning off the light as she went.

* * *

Loki sat in the dark as the mortal girl Jane slumbered.

For the first time in hundreds of years, he didn't know what he was doing. He felt as though he were stumbling along blindly, tripping over his own feet and slurring the words that fell unbidden from his lips.

He didn't know why he had claimed the name of the lord of the Elves, Freyr. He hadn't thought of him for a long time, and he had not visited Alfheim for an even longer time. He had once revered Freyr and wished to study under his tutelage. Freyr had been, and still was, one of the greatest beings Yggdrasil had ever seen. His dominion was over the sun itself and all the fruits that it cultivated. Unfortunately, Asgard had cut many ties with Freyr after he had – Loki's lip curled at the thought – taken a Frost Giant for his bride. Really, it was ironic that Loki had just adopted his name. The irony took itself even further – Freyr's dominion also fell over mortals, weak creatures such as Loki had just tumbled into the hands of. Loki's opinion of Freyr had fallen greatly since they had first met. However, he had never lost respect for the lord's skill as a magician. It was said that his voice could draw young maidens to him and that his tears could wet the earth and give birth to springtime.

Loki wondered if he would have been so contemptuous of Freyr if he had known of his own heritage sooner. It didn't seem to be making a difference now, so probably not.

Despite his opinion, the name had come to him, and he had allowed it to slip out. There had been no point to it, he knew. The girl would not have recognized his true name. However, he had always been one to take precautions, and anyone who knew of Asgard might know of him. Freyr had become a more common name in Alfheim than Loki had in Asgard – even were she to know of the great king, she would not suspect him to be lying about his identity.

He frowned. That brought up more issues. How did a Midgardian girl know about Asgard? In his time gone, had Asgard extended a friendly hand towards Midgard? Become trading partners with the realm? Had Jane once been visited by someone travelling with the Bifrost? He did not suspect her of not being from Midgard herself – her eyes were too young, and an aura of weakness surrounded her. No, she had to have an outside source. He intended to find out the origins and depths of her knowledge as soon as she awoke.

He didn't know enough. He was too disconnected and lost. How long had he fallen? Weeks? Months? Years? Centuries? Truly, it felt more like the latter. He had no way of finding out though. Jane Foster almost certainly had no way of knowing, and he had no way to travel back to Asgard to find out.

Asgard. He would not return there even if he could. Yggdrasil had been akin to Hel, yes – but to return to Asgard was to invite Hel's flames to lick at his flesh. Even if hundreds of years truly had passed, as it had felt they had in Yggdrasil's branches, no one would have forgotten him. He would still be persecuted. They called him the Trickster; Silver Tongue; Coward; Liar. Even as their king, they had hated him. He knew not what else he could have done to satiate their thirst or to satisfy their longing hearts. He had lived among them his entire life – they had always called for war, bloodshed, and glory. He had tried to give it all to them, to make them proud to call him their leader, though he had not asked for the role, but to no avail. They had changed their minds about what they wanted. He could no longer meet their desires.

Of course, no one had told him this. They had hissed and whispered behind his back, leaving Thor and his father ( _No, no, not your father_ ) to put him in his place.

The emptiness that he had battled his entire life threatened to crawl back up to his heart and envelop his thoughts. _Inadequate._ That's what he had always been, to his family, his brother's friends, and the people of Asgard.

Loki clenched his teeth. He would not allow himself to ruminate on the wrongs done to him. Not on this night. He had more imminent worries to face. He knew not where he would go after he was done healing in this mortal's home. His powers were weak – his magic would take longer to heal than his body would, and both needed their rest. He had angered the girl Jane, and, was he to do it again, he would likely find himself without shelter. While this would not be his end, it would certainly not be pleasant.

He had been stupidly careless in speaking to the girl. He had given her a story full of far too much detail for any skilled liar to take it as truth. He did not think that she suspected, but it bothered him nonetheless. His brains felt addled and not fit to properly outwit anyone, even a weak young girl such as Jane Foster. Then he had continued to not think and had allowed his anger at her insipid and prying questions to worm its way into him. He had spoken cruelly to her, more in tone than in words, but it had been harsher than he would have liked anyway. His silver tongue had rarely let him down so. He had always been an expert in knowing when and how to hide his annoyance, but the knowledge left him for that brief moment. He needed to keep her content with his presence so that she would allow him to stay in her abode, if only for a few more days.

Though he had tried to smooth over his mistake, she had ended the discussion. He had allowed her to. Speaking so much had tired him, and his throat felt as though it was being rubbed dry with sand.

The more he thought, the more tired he became. Despite his five day respite, his body was still not prepared to handle so much at once. He slid into his set position on the lumped chaise (Midgardians had the most ridiculous concept of comfort) and felt himself slipping into sleep. His magic hummed weakly beneath his skin. It was time to rest and to allow his body to sew itself back together.

He drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Jane woke up to the sound of screaming.

It jolted her eyes open, her body jumping out from under her covers before she knew what she was doing. It wasn't just a shout; it was a ripping _scream_ , and it was continuing with barely a pause.

She ran out of the back room that housed a bed the size of a cot that she crashed on when she was doing a lot of research and couldn't allow herself more than a few hours of sleep (i.e. almost every night). It was Freyr. Freyr was screaming. She bolted to the couch.

He was thrashing, his mouth wide open and his eyes closed tightly. She had never heard anyone make such a sound. It crawled under her skin and made her eyes water.

Unsure of what to do, but sure that she had to do _something_ , she grabbed his bandaged arm and shook him. He didn't wake up. She shook harder, biting her lip and sending him a silent apology for hurting him even more.

With a gasp that sounded more like a sob than anything, he awoke, sitting up so quickly that she had to move out of the way so she wouldn't be hit.

He was breathing deeply, great shuddering gasps wracking his body. He wasn't screaming anymore. He wasn't crying, either, like she would have expected. She couldn't remember the last nightmare she hadn't woken up from with tears in her eyes.

His bandages were skewed. Some were torn from his large movements, and some had loosened or fallen off of him altogether. She was grateful that his stomach was still covered. She didn't know if she could have handled seeing that again. She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. Even though his wounds were getting better, she and Freyr were going to have to rewrap him in the morning.

He finally looked at her. His breathing had calmed somewhat. "My apologies, Miss Foster," he rasped. His voice had been ruined by his screams.

"It's okay. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Do you – er – want to talk about it, or anything? You're not hurt, right?"

His eyes looked hollow in the little light provided by the moon through the windows. "Physically, I am quite well," he responded. His voice was little more than a rough whisper.

"Um. Alright. Is there anything that you need? Anything I can do for you?" she said.

He was silent for a long time. She wished that he would just speak. After sitting beside him for another ten quiet minutes, she stood up.

"Okay. I'm glad you're going to be alright. Goodnight, Freyr."

She almost expected him to stop her as she walked out. She didn't know what she expected after that. To hear about what made him scream? To learn about his greatest fears? To hear some drivel about the horror of the dark of night or a war backstory, like the movies always had monologues about? But he said nothing, and she said nothing in response to his silence. She walked out of the room and went back to bed.

Sleep escaped her for the rest of the night.


	5. Chapter 5

Jane rolled over, huffing as a ray of sunlight hit her eyes and split her head. She glanced at the alarm clock beside her bed – it was only 6:30 a.m.

With a groan, she shoveled farther down under her blankets and threw a pillow over her head. She hadn't gotten any sleep and had just spent the early dark hours of the morning tossing and turning. Even though she wasn't really a champion of healthy sleep patterns, the past two nights had taken a toll even on her. She knew that if she were to look in a mirror, all she would see were dark circles, puffy eyes, and hair like a rat's nest.

Trying for a few more minutes to get some rest, and completely failing, she emerged from her cocoon of useless pillows and blankets to start preparing for the day. It wasn't like she was going to fall asleep, and even if she did, one or two hours wasn't really going to help her feel less like the zombie on her couch.

Thinking of Freyr, she frowned. Her houseguest was certainly intriguing, and not necessarily in a good way. He was polite one minute, cold and rude the next. He needed constant care if he was going to recover from those wounds, but he wouldn't even tell her how he got them. Also, the screaming from last night…she shuddered as she made her way to the bathroom. She never wanted to hear a sound like that again. It sounded as though he was being tortured.

On second thought, if what had injured him had inspired those screams…maybe she didn't want to know exactly what had happened.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, feeling slightly more human after a hot shower and some clean clothing, Jane emerged from her room. She was still in dire need of a caffeine fix, which meant coffee. Lots of it.

When Darcy had first begun working with Jane, she had told Jane in a severe, scolding tone that all the coffee she and Erik ingested would kill them. Jane had snorted, ignoring her. Two weeks later, and fully ingrained into their schedule, Darcy had been drinking more than both of them.

Jane felt her mood darken. She hadn't seen Darcy or Erik since before Freyr had landed, and she missed them. Maybe, when Freyr was feeling a bit better, she could finally let them in on her deal with the new space man.

She glanced at Freyr as she passed his couch. Like any other sane human being (or alien), he was still asleep at the early hour. His face looked just as pale as it had the day before, and the shadows under his eyes were more pronounced than hers. The scars definitely didn't help the look either. She quickly shuffled to the side of his makeshift bed and tugged the blanket over his shoulders. She didn't need him to be cold on top of everything else.

Yawning, she continued to make her way to the kitchen. There, she made a fine pot of coffee, the smell of which permeated the whole lab. She guzzled down two cups contentedly. _This_ , she thought, _is food for the gods._ Thor had seemed to agree while he had been on Earth.

 _Note to self,_ she added. _Don't forget to ask Freyr for news on Thor._

Jane still wasn't quite sure how comfortable she felt revealing how familiar she was with odd men from space with her new guest. On the one hand, if he knew the royal family and was friends with them, her ties with the God of Thunder could be useful. However, if he was an enemy or held a grudge...

If Freyr were to threaten her to get to Thor, then it could be disastrous. He could kill her, hoping from a reaction from Thor. Or he could hold her hostage, hoping to lure Thor to him. And if Thor never showed up in that situation, she's probably end up dead anyway.

Or Freyr could hold no interest in the royal family of Asgard. Either way, he wouldn't be strong enough to hurt her for some time yet.

She would hold off on giving him information about herself for now. She really just needed to get to know him better.

She wished that she could be meaner. She was trying her best in keeping a strong persona up with Freyr so that he couldn't roll all over her, but that wasn't _mean_. Mean was being able to kick him out and let him find another place to recover, if he could find one at all. But she knew she could never do that. She could never turn down someone who needed help, no matter how odd they were or how inconvenient it was for her. And he _really_ needed her help. Even though she didn't know him or trust him, her heart panged a little bit every time she caught a glance of his mutilated skin. She could only thank the gods (or aliens or whatever) that he had landed with someone who wouldn't turn him in to a team of scientists for his strange origins.

With a sigh, she made two new mugs of coffee and carried the steaming cups into the living room area. She set them down on the coffee table. She knew that sleep would really benefit Freyr right now, but after the screaming and thrashing from the night before, his bandages really needed to be rewrapped. She leaned down to wake him up as gently as she could…and found a pair of eyes open and staring back at her.

"Gah!" she said, jumping back. He didn't move one inch. "Don't – don't do that!"

Slowly, very slowly, his brow crinkled. "My apologies," he rasped. His voice was still thick with sleep and slightly raw from screaming.

She took a deep breath. "I was just coming to wake you up," she said. "We need to rewrap your bandages. You need clean ones, and the others got shifted around last night. Also, we should probably make sure you didn't open any of your wounds again."

Again, he slowly nodded. He began to sit up, moving so slowly that it seemed he was moving each vertebra one at a time. When he elicited a small hiss, she moved forward to help him. Placing a hand on his back, she gently helped him push himself up. She tried not to shudder at the feel of his delicate bones under her fingers. She could feel every bump, and it felt as though she could easily break him. She made a new resolve to make sure he ate, and ate a lot. He was so thin that she worried he might blow away if she opened a window.

He finally arranged himself in an upright position, propping his back on pillows. Wordlessly, she handed one of the coffee mugs to him. He took it with a delicate sniff.

"And what, pray tell," he said, "is this?"

"Coffee," she replied. "The beautiful drink that keeps us Midgardians going. Try it."

He looked at her dubiously, then breathed in the contents. He gave a small shrug and took a gulp –

And promptly spat it out.

"That," he exclaimed, his voice still a bit raspy, "was foul. How do you drink that disgusting sludge without vomiting?"

She couldn't help it – she laughed. She noticed him jump at the sound, as though it startled him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I forgot that novices to coffee need some help getting it down."

She got up, and a moment later reappeared with packets of sugar and milk. She poured a generous amount of each into his cup and stirred it under his watchful eye.

"Here – try it again." She offered it to him.

He just glared at her.

"Oh my gosh, come on, try it again," she prodded. "That first sip was my mistake."

He still turned his nose up at it like a stubborn child. It was amazing how much he could express with such limited movements. She sighed, deciding to change tactics. "Drinking it will give you enough energy to stay up through the bandaging, and then, I promise, you can go back to sleep," she said. "I won't wake you up again for the rest of the day."

With a grudging look, he took the cup and gingerly took another sip. Then another. And another. Within a few minutes, he had downed the whole mug.

She raised an eyebrow. "Better?" she asked.

"It was acceptable," he conceded.

She tried hard not to snort. "A fan of sweet things, then?"

"I – I don't understand. _Fan?_ "

"Oh! Right. You wouldn't get Earth terms. It means you like sweet things."

He looked at her for a moment with that annoying expressionless face on again. Then he said, "Yes. Yes, I do like sweets."

She grinned. Finally, a normal conversation. "Good to know."

As was becoming quite normal for them, they sat in silence for a few minutes. Jane tried not to fidget. Then she remembered – "Oh! Right! The bandages! I'll be right back."

She came back to his couch with a pile of first aid material in tow. "Okay, Freyr," she said. "This is probably going to be uncomfortable for the both of us, so let's just get it over with, okay?"

He nodded, his jaw already tight. She prayed that she didn't hurt him too much.

Unwrapping the dirtied strips was an agonizingly slow process. At least, it felt slow. He sat ramrod straight at the beginning, but gradually hunched over the further along she got, his shoulders clenching and his mouth spitting the occasional curse along with his stream of hisses and gasps. She moved slowly as well, hating it. Her shoulders grew tight too, and she clenched her teeth before starting on each new strip.

The bandages would often get caught as they unwound. They would get stuck to his skin, glued on by dried blood and fluids. Each time it happened, she would whisper, "I'm so sorry," rip it off quickly, and try not to cry when he shouted out. Once, he let a sob escape his mouth. She had to stop working for a moment to collect herself. She couldn't even handle seeing a bird fly into a window when she was small – this was too much.

Jane tried not to look at Freyr's skin as she worked. She kept her eyes trained on the bandages, muddied and stinking as they were. If just hearing his exclamations of pain was enough to unsettle her, then she didn't know what constantly seeing his wounds would do. She also didn't make eye contact with him – she didn't want to see his face while she did this.

She hesitated when she got to the piece that would uncover his stomach. She remembered the horrific sight from the night she'd found him – a gaping hole where skin should be, muscles ripped and organs threatening to spill out. It had nearly made her sick then, and she suspected adrenaline to be the only thing to keep her from keeling over and puking then. She didn't know what seeing it now would do. She might get sick on him, or cry, and neither one would do.

Freyr sensed her hesitance. "Don't worry," he said roughly. "That's the area I've put the most energy towards healing."

She didn't know how he knew what had made her stop, or how he could "put energy" towards healing a specific part of his body. However, she did know that she had to finish this. Setting her jaw, she unwrapped his torso, pointedly avoiding looking at any flesh at all.

Soon after, it was over. She sat back on her heels, breathing a sigh of relief. "It's over," she said softly. "It's okay, you did it." She found it odd to comfort a man as old as he, but she was pretty sure he could use some encouraging words.

He didn't respond. She frowned and made herself look up at him. She kept his eyes trained on his face, skipping the rest of him.

He was staring straight ahead, no expression on his face again. And he was shaking.

It was only slight, but it was happening anyway. The powerful being sitting on the couch beside her was trembling.

"Hey," she soothed. "Hey, it's okay. It's okay. It's over." Hesitantly, she reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder. She felt a rough patch of skin, a wound already healed over, beneath her palm. "You're going to be okay. I promise. We'll get you patched up again, and then you'll be just fine."

Still not looking at her, he breathed in deeply. Then – "Do not condescend to me, mortal. Your meaningless words serve no purpose other than to make a fool of yourself."

Jane felt a hot, bitter anger rise up in her. She wrenched her hand away before she could let it slap him.

 _Calm, Jane,_ she told herself. _You've gotta stay calm._

"I'm going to go throw these away," she said, motioning to the bandages. She was very proud that her voice sounded cold and hard instead of shaky. "When I return, we'll wrap you up again, and then I'll get my worthless mortal self out of your sight." She spat the last words, then swept off, leaving Freyr alone.

* * *

Once Jane reached her bathroom, she took several deep breaths. Then a few more.

Then she threw the bandages violently into the trashcan, their unsatisfying thump only making her more angry.

Okay, she understood that Midgardians were like the joke of the universe. She got that. They were weak and didn't live for very long and had yet to make contact with the other Realms. What she didn't understand was why her guest seemed to think that it was okay to speak to her as though she was not worth the dirt on the bottom of his shoe.

It was rude. She had taken care of him and kept him out of the elements. It wasn't that she wanted compensation or anything – she just wanted to be treated well in her own home.

He had been fine that morning! He had drunk coffee. She had found out that he liked sweets. He had been civil, and she had smiled. Why the sudden switch?

The bandages. He had been in pain. He had been shaking. She had tried to comfort him as best as she could, and he had shot her in the face for it.

 _Jane,_ she thought. _Gah, you idiot._

He had been in pain, and he'd lashed out at her.

Of course

So, he wasn't the nicest. He didn't know how to control his anger all too well. She really wasn't a huge fan of his mood swings and cruel tongue. But maybe…It wasn't justified, but maybe she could understand _why._

Something her dad had once told her when he had still been alive – _"People are not always nice, Jane. And sometimes, they act in regrettable ways when they're angry, or hurt, or betrayed. But we need to remember that that isn't who they are all the time. How would you like it if you were only judged based on something you said or did when you slipped up? We need to remember to give everyone some leeway. After all, we're all only human."_

Her dad had been big on forgiveness, and on seeing the goodness in others. She hadn't really inherited that particular trait, but she had tried to retain the things like that that he'd said to her. She forgot them a lot, but when she remembered them, they helped.

" _We're all only human."_ Based on what she had seen of the gods, they acted pretty human as well. They weren't necessarily pillars of morality. She was pretty sure that this gem from her dad could apply to Freyr as well.

She let out an annoyed huff. Freyr had had no right to speak to her like that while she had been taking care of him. But…

He was hurt. He had been in a lot of pain, and she had spoken. She had probably said things he didn't want to hear. Or maybe he just didn't want to hear any other voices at all. So he'd snapped at her. Maybe that was how he dealt with pain – vomiting out cruel words and hurting others.

If that was his coping mechanism, then it just wouldn't do. She'd forgive him this time – just _barely_. But if he spoke to her like that again, she'd…well, she wasn't sure what she'd do.

Probably just shout back at him and grumble behind his back.

Unfortunately, she wasn't a very threatening person.

 _This one's for you, dad,_ she thought, and she headed back to the living room.

* * *

Freyr was right where she'd left him. It didn't look like he'd moved an inch. She began to march towards him, her reluctant goal in mind.

Then Jane stopped in her tracks.

_Oh._

She forgot about her anger. She forgot about her new resolve to forgive the rude guest on her couch. She forgot about a lot of things.

She had seen his skin.

And now that she'd seen, she couldn't look away.

His skin was a kaleidoscope of different colors and textures. There were patches that were irritated and red, others that were a pale, bloodless white, and still others that were the purple, green, and brown hues that only come with bruises. The parts that had already healed made a map of purple and white ridges on his back and shoulders. Some healed holes in his body had created large masses of rolling, bumpy skin that seemed the pinch the flesh together at some places and stretch it out too far at others.

The worst parts were the wounds that hadn't healed. There were still gashes and cuts, lacerations and scrapes that showed dark red underneath their surfaces. There was a part on his shoulder that looked like it held bite marks, but she didn't know where he would have found a beast with teeth that size to bite him. Others wounds looked like claws had ripped into him. On his back, she saw markings that she would have thought, had she not known better, looked like scars from tentacles. Dried brown blood coated parts of him, and the parts of skin that lay unmarred (there wasn't much) shone a sickly white.

His stomach was actually…not as terrible as she expected. The skin covering his torso looked to be the wormy texture of ground beef, and sections of it were red as a rash. But skin was covering his vital organs, and it was fully closed, with nothing unsavory poking out. She silently thanked the powers that be for his supposed uncanny ability to direct his healing.

Beneath all the gore, be it healed or stale, he was thinner than a wraith. She could see his ribs poking through his skin and his spinal cord stretching against the flesh on his back. His cheeks were hollow, and his fingers skeletal.

The overall effect was rather terrible, and she resisted the urge to back out of the room and leave the awful scene behind her. She stayed, staring.

When he finally turned his face towards her, she saw the glint of a few white scars on his cheeks. His face had healed almost as well as his stomach.

"Are you completely done gawping at me now, Miss Foster?" he asked in a drawling voice. It probably would have sounded much droller had his voice not still been weak. She wondered if his vocal chords had been damaged along with the rest of him.

When she finally replied, what came out of her mouth was not what she had expected. "You, um, you don't have any clothes on." She had just noticed. You'd think that something that obvious would have been on the forefront of her mind, but it turn out that gruesome injuries blind people to a lot of things.

The rags and strips of cloth that had just barely clung to him when she had found him in the crater had fallen off – she supposed it was from the trip from the crater to her home. Now, there was just enough dark, leathery cloth to cover the important parts.

Had Thor been the man from space sitting on her couch, she was pretty sure such a state of undress would distract her to no end. Now, it just looked…sad. He was so malnourished and scraped up that it just seemed to highlight his unfortunate plight even more.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Only just noticed this?"

"Um…" she stumbled. "Um, yes."

He sniffed and looked away, seeming to not want to deign that with a response.

She bit her lip. "Tell you what?" she said. "How about we get you some new clothes when you've healed enough? My treat." Goodness knew she could afford it. SHIELD had paid a hefty price for her silence on the whole Thor thing. She'd barely spent any of it at all, besides what she'd needed to build new instruments for her work. It was nice to have it there though – knowing that she had a tiny bit of money was better than her previous state of having absolutely no money.

"Perhaps," was all she got in reply.

She sighed.

"Come on," she said. "Let's get you mummified again."

* * *

Wrapping Freyr up took a much shorter amount of time than unwrapping him. Jane tried her best not to touch his mutilations, but she had to much more often than either one of them liked. He cringed every time her fingers brushed a wound or a scar, and she murmured hurried apologies each time. It wasn't that she was too disgusted by the injuries – something about them just seemed to repel her. They weren't normal in any way, and they felt almost dark. Her disgust had faded after the touching the first one or two – now all that remained was an odd wariness of them.

Whatever had happened to Freyr, she hoped never happened to anyone else.

She finished the job silently and left.

Twenty minutes later, she came back to him, laden down with sandwiches and soup.

"I know I said you could sleep when we finished," she told him, "but you need to eat something first. You're way too thin than is healthy."

He said nothing, but nodded, accepting a plate.

"So," she said as he took his first bite. "I was thinking that we call a truce and start over."

He raised his eyebrows and motioned for her to go on with his sandwich.

"I know that I annoy you sometimes," she started. "And let me tell you, you make me angrier than I've been in a long time. But I'm interested in seeing you get better, and you're going to be stuck around here for a long time. So, let's start over. Let's forget the bad things that we've said to one another and just…try again."

 _You're doing this for dad,_ she reminded herself. _For dad, and for the scared little boy you see beneath those terrible scars._ She plastered a small smile onto her face.

He seemed to contemplate this as he chewed.

"I suppose…" he said slowly, "that that would be acceptable."

She smiled again, and this time it was a real one, albeit small. "Great. So, I won't pry too much or mollycoddle you, and you won't lose your temper at me. We'll help each other out. Be friendly."

He nodded, accepting. She nodded back, and they finished their meal in silence.

 _Now,_ she thought, _if we can stick to that, this might work._

* * *

While Freyr slept that afternoon, she carefully put a piece of chocolate on the coffee table beside him.

 _A truce gift_ , she called it.

When he awoke, she was rewarded with a small smile of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies! I am so, so sorry for the incredibly long delay. I hope that there are people still reading this! I know that over two months is unacceptable, I just got EXTREMELY busy. As in, barely-had-time-to-catch-my-breath busy. But I'm back, and hopefully you won't have to wait that long again.
> 
> This break was good, though - I got a clearer idea of where the story is headed. And yes, it will go somewhere. Probably.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this new chapter! Please review!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the long wait! I swear, I'm going to update much more often. Thank you for the support so far. If you like it, please leave a kudo or a comment! Those make my day!

Thor rubbed his temples. He'd had a headache for the past two hours, and it was only getting worse. He wasn't quite sure if it had resulted from the high noonday sun or the infernal yapping that was going on around him – it was probably both.

With a sigh, he looked up again to see the same scene that had been before him for a fair six hours: a great table of Asgardian lords, all of them overburdened with heavy robes and ornaments, and almost all balding. At the moment, Lord Trálr was speaking, his brittle, toneless voice carrying over across the table to Thor. It was so boring that Thor almost wished that the lords would start squabbling again, like they had two hours before.

"I'm sure," Lord Trálr was saying, "that you all are able to see the issue before us – our borders are under attack, good sirs, and not by any foe that can be vanquished with steel. Nay, we are being invaded by a disease – a disease upon our crops. One-fortieth of the uncultivated lebnā grass growing on the borders of Asgard has died in the past month due to mysterious causes. This is, clearly, important for the Council to address, as this crop is Asgard's fourth most profitable…"

Thor removed his attention from the conversation again.

The past several weeks had been like this. He, the future King of Asgard, had been required to begin attending the thrice-weekly Council meetings. They started before dawn had begun to kiss the skies, and lasted until the evening meal. Each was duller than the last. The stuffy old lords addressed nothing of import or interest. When he was younger, Thor had overheard his father tell his mother that he had formed the Council to keep the cranky lords satisfied with their role in "running" the kingdom, as well as out of his way.

Thor was currently of the opinion that the nobles should have just been shoved onto Jotunheim, but unfortunately he wasn't the All-Father and the decision was not his. Besides he was (almost) certain that he only now thought so due to his newfound position as their overseer.

The more he thought about it, the more Thor thought that this might be a further extension of his recent punishment of being sent powerless to Midgard.

If this was the case, then he had to applaud his father, for this was certainly far worse.

Midgard had not been terrible. Despite being powerless, he had enjoyed himself at times – far more often than he was enjoying himself in this meeting. Midgard had had strange metal contraptions faster than horses, delicious brews (Thor was already looking into trading with Midgard for these "coffee beans"), and lovely young women. Thor had especially enjoyed the company of his new friends Darcy, Erik, and, of course, Jane Foster.

Jane had been particularly enjoyable to be around. Her beauty rivalled that of even Lofn or Freya, and her quick wit and fiery disposition had certainly added to her charms. He wished to be able to return to her, as he had promised, but the Bifrost was still under repair. He could only wait and hope that he would be with her again soon. Until then, he'd made sure that Heimdall kept a close watch on her.

Thor's complete inattention to the Council was interrupted by the sound of the heavy swing of the door. He turned in his seat to see Sif striding past the gold columns and into the chamber.

"Excuse me, my Lords," Sif said, her regal demeanor not breaking to return Thor's grin. "The Queen requests the presence of her son."

His grin stretching even wider, Thor rose from his uncomfortable chair and followed Sif out, ignoring the murmured whispers of, "Of course, Your Grace. Your Highness," and bows from the old men. He strode out of the room with Sif.

"What does my mother require?" Thor asked as soon as the doors had closed behind them.

"Oh, nothing," Sif replied as they began to walk. "She gave me permission to pull you out of that tomb for a bit of sparring practice." She finally flashed him a smile.

"You deserve to be crowned queen of Valhalla, my friend," Thor said brightly.

"Oh, stop it," she said, but she was grinning now too. "Was it really so awful in there?"

"You could not even conceive of it," he grumbled.

"You had always been interested in how the kingdom is governed before," she said with a slightly disapproving frown. "I had always thought your relation with the lords to be a happy one."

"I am still interested in the governance of the kingdom," Thor replied, "but _they_ are not a part of the process. The true power lies with the All-Father, the queen, and their advisors. Those decrepit old men discuss naught but bugs in the grain and the angle of the sun."

Sif snorted.

"It's true!" Thor insisted. "Nothing of import lies in the hands of the Council."

"So, you do not like them as you once did?" she asked.

"No, I never liked them. It was always L – " He cut himself off.

"Yes?"

Thor hesitated. "It was always…Loki…who liked discussing things with those men," he said quietly. "Or, he pretended too. I think he thought them fools as much as I did, but it was he who assured our good relations with the Council."

Sif was silent. Thor knew that she had shed no tears over the loss of his brother. Her hatred of Loki had always hurt him, as well as it had Loki, he suspected. Despite his brother's icy demeanor, the opinions of Thor's friends had always mattered to him.

Drawn into thoughts of his brother that he did not wish to delve into, Thor sighed. "He would have been much better at this than I," he said in a low tone. "He knew how to handle the diplomacy and politics of the court. He paid attention in his lessons. If he were here instead of I – "

"Then he would not be the future king that Asgard needs!" Sif interjected, her eyes blazing. "Thor," she said, grabbing his arm, "You were born to be king, and you will be a great king. You know the people, and they love you. You are brave, and compassionate, and kind. You will be a better leader than Loki ever could be."

Thor did not look at her.

"Thor?"

"…I miss him, Sif," he said in a whisper, his eyes downcast. "I miss my brother."

"I…I know," she replied, squeezing his arm before releasing it. "But there's nothing we can do now."

"What if there was something we _could_ have done?" he asked quietly. "You remember how my brother once was. I do not know what happened to him, but surely there was something we could have done to help him."

Sif mulled this over quietly. Finally, she said, "I know that you loved him until the very end. Regardless, there is nothing we can do. Honoring his memory, missing him, pining for better days – none of this can change that he is gone. And none of it can change the fact that you are going to be a good king, Thor, even without him by your side."

Thor offered her a small smile. It did not reach his eyes. She bit her lip.

"We _are_ going to help you get through this, you know," she said. "You will not be alone."

Thor's smile was even smaller than before; however, his eyes did sparkle marginally. Lady Sif decided to count it as a victory.

"Now, come," she said with a false cheer in her voice, pulling on him. "Let us spar. Nothing will improve your mood as much as losing to me again will."

Thor laughed, and though it was not full or joyful, it was loud enough for the boom to follow the two as they went outside.

* * *

Heimdall watched his prince join the Lady Sif outside. Thor was laughing, and it was the first laughter Heimdall had seen out of the prince for months. His gaze did not miss the still blank look in Thor's eyes or the smile that did not flash as it usually did – rather, he elected to look past them. Any laughter was a step forward. The Gatekeeper could not ask for more.

Heimdall saw the prince smile, and though it was a false one, it soothed him. He could ease his mind.

Heimdall had been watching Thor since the Bifrost incident. The prince of Asgard had been distant and silent. However, any lord of the castle or serving wench could have known that. Heimdall, however, saw more than any of them ever could. Only he could see Thor's courteous smile drop from his lips once everyone's back was turned. Only he could see closely enough to see the dead glaze that fell over Thor's eyes far too often. Only he could see past all doors after they had been locked to witness the prince's tears.

His sovereign prince was broken on the inside, and Heimdall, ever the Gatekeeper and Stargazer, could only watch as Thor mourned for the lost prince that none but he loved or missed.

With a sigh that none would ever hear, Heimdall shifted his gaze to a new subject. This one, too, bore a heavy heart. Heimdall harbored no love for this man – this limp, broken man, sitting and staring blankly at nothing; however, he knew who did.

But when the All-Father ordered that his favored son was not to know that the Silvertongue was alive, Heimdall obeyed.

He remained the impassive Gatekeeper, never speaking of what he saw.

* * *

Jane decided that the whole truce idea had been a great one. She and Freyr hadn't fought once since it had been established yesterday.

Of course, they hadn't exchanged more than ten words either, but the not-fighting was what counted.

However, she was pretty sure that she was about to probably end their record streak. It was time for lunch, and she was making food for both of them. She was going to have to sit down and talk to the guy while they ate so that she could be a good hostess and whatnot, and their civility tended to break when they spent more than five minutes in each other's company. Even though she wasn't holding her breath on it, she was hoping that he'd actually be kinder this time.

With this thought firmly in mind, she stirred the contents of the pot on her rickety stove with renewed vigor. She was making fettuccini alfredo for lunch, figuring that if he had something decent to eat, then Freyr might be a bit more pleasant. She tried not to think about the fact that it was one of the only dishes she actually knew how to make well and that she was throwing out a valuable playing card so early in the game. Hopefully this decision would pay off in good communication.

Victorious in making a delicious sauce, she brandished her spoon and began to integrate the pasta with the creamy white goodness. She hoped she'd be finished soon – she was starving.

Her wish was granted in due time. With a smile, a messy ponytail, a splattered shirt, and a slightly sweaty face, she proudly carried two bowls out to the living area. She was very impolitely ignored by Freyr, who had his nose buried in…a book.

"Wha – where did you even get that?" she asked.

Without looking away from the book, he pointed past her. She turned around to see the bookshelf that was shoved against the wall, practically blockaded behind all of her equipment. Most of the books piled up on the shelves were various "science-y type texts", as Darcy had once dubbed them when complaining about a lack of good reading material in the lab, but there were some actual fiction pieces there, courtesy of both Darcy and Erik. Jane turned back on Freyr, one incredulous eyebrow raised.

"And you just walked over there to get it, did you?" she said critically, eying his still bandaged body.

He didn't respond at all, not even with a nod. She huffed and set the pasta down onto the coffee table.

"What are you reading, anyway?" she asked him.

As an answer, he held the book up higher until it was completely masking his face so that she could clearly see the title. It was one of her few book-books, rather than a tome on science.

" _The Lord of the Rings,_ huh?" she said, sitting down on the floor beside the table and crossing her legs. "How are you liking it?"

All she received was a noncommittal shrug of the shoulders.

"I loved those books when I was younger," she said. "All of Tolkien's books, actually. I taught myself how to write in Elvish when I was in middle school, but I've forgotten it." She waited expectantly. He just kept reading. She sighed.

"Okay, lunch is served. You can stop reading for a few minutes and force yourself to eat."

The book slowly lowered to reveal an eyebrow raised in her direction. "Yup," she insisted. "Put the book all the way down, and eat the meal I slaved over for you."

The full brunt of his single raised-eyebrow now fell to her pasta. His eyes flicked to it, then back to her. She maintained a poker face while he slowly set the book down and scooted slowly to the edge of the couch. She was pretty sure the (sassy) repulsion was just an act – he'd gobbled down the sandwich and soup well enough yesterday.

She offered him an overly bright smile. "Dig in!"

He gingerly picked up a fork and slowly did as she suggested, though much more reservedly than she. They ate in silence for a few minutes. Jane was wracking her brain trying to come up with something to say that wouldn't offend him somehow, and it was a lot more difficult than she'd thought it would be since she had no idea what would set him off.

It turns out that she didn't have to come up with the conversation topic. "There are dwarves in this book," he said, not looking away from his food.

"Oh," she said, glancing over to the book where it lay dog-eared on the couch. "Yeah, there are. His other books have even more than this one does."

"And there are elves," Freyr said as though he hadn't heard her.

"Yeah," she said, slightly baffled.

He looked at her from under his lashes. She'd never see anyone do that in real life – it was always described as attractive and smoldering in books. On him, it just made him look like a serpent sizing up its prey. "Midgard must have come far in its intergalactic relations since I last heard word from it. Last I knew, there were no dwarves or elves on this planet."

"What?" she asked, completely baffled. "Wha – there _are_ no dwarves or elves on Earth. The ones in the book are just fake. Made up. Fictional."

"Ah," he said, lowering his eyes to his food again. "I see."

Jane's mind finally caught up to her. "Wait – you said we'd come far in…You mean to tell me that there are dwarves and elves where you come from?" she demanded.

He glanced back to her. "Oh, no, not where I come from. That would be a political mess. No, the dwarves reside in Nidavellir. Dark Elves hailed from Svartalfheim, but they are long dead and gone now. The Light Elves live on Alfheim." He took a bite of pasta, his eyes never leaving hers.

Jane felt slightly lightheaded. "Okay. I might need some time to process that information."

"Please," he said, flourishing his fork with a smirk. "Take all the time you need."

She fought down the urge to glare at him. "I'm not dumb," she said. "I don't need to ponder my place in the universe or anything after learning that. You just told me that even more myths besides Norse Gods exist, and this time, it's ones I grew up reading about. I just need to take in the information and get used to it." Now, she couldn't stop a grin. "This is actually _incredible._ "

He gave her a dry look. Somehow, the white scars on his face weren't impeding his myriad of expressions at all. "Well it's not as though the real things are just like they are depicted in your fanciful book, Miss Foster."

"Well, yeah, I can deal with that," she said, waving her hand. "But it was close enough to make you ask if we'd actually made contact with them!"

"…I suppose," he said.

She felt her smile stretch even wider. "This is so exciting."

"Yes," he said, his dry tone now matching his face. "I'm simply rolling in happiness at the news."

"Oh, come on, just allow me to get a little excited."

"I shall not," he said resolutely. There was a pause, then: "I shall, however, tell you that the first time I ever met a Light Elf, I screamed and hid behind my mother's skirt."

Jane couldn't help it – she laughed. She noticed Freyr's lips quirking upwards for a brief instant as well, before he schooled them back down. "Was he scary looking?" she asked.

"Not at all. I just didn't like strangers at the time, and when he smiled at me, I decided that I especially didn't like him."

She snorted. "You must have given your parents such a hard time as a kid."

He smiled a bit, and it was all she could do to keep herself from cheering at the sight of it. "You have no idea," he said lightly.

Then his face suddenly grew dark, and a frown replaced his miniscule smile. She watched him, totally confused at his dramatic mood shift. He silently looked back down at his pasta, and the tense lines of his shoulders told Jane to either leave him alone or change the subject.

She wanted to shake her fists or something equally as dramatic. He had smiled, and now he was back to being her own personal little mummified raincloud.

"Hey," she said. "I kind of – um – well, I sort of study these sorts of things. Space, and physics, and…such. Do you think that, maybe, when you're feeling better down the line, you could draw me some sort of diagram of where these realms might be? Or something? It might end up being a big help. And maybe it'll be something you'd enjoy doing." It might have been selfish of her to ask something of him right then, and she felt stupid saying it in such simple terms, but when she didn't know what to say, she reverted to talking about her work. It had been that way for a while, and it didn't look like it was going to change around Freyr.

She didn't get an answer – not even a nod. He was too busy silently staring at the table with a scowl on his face. She didn't want to stop talking now, when things had been going so well. But she had no idea what to say. "Um, you mentioned not knowing if Midgard had begun relations with other realms since you'd last heard. Are you suggesting that you've been away from your politics and stuff for a while? Because it seems that – "

It was then she saw them. " _Shit,_ " she spat, leaping up and grabbing both of their bowls. She ran to the sink to put them away. She couldn't look like she was having guests over.

She scrambled back to the couch. "We need to hide you," she said. " _Now."_

No longer brooding, but confused, he looked to where her eyes were trained. Through the windows, they could see the several large black vehicles that had pulled up and were now being emptied of men in nondescript black suits

SHIELD was here.

She cursed again. Freyr hadn't even moved and was just looking out the window. Why wasn't he moving? Didn't he not want - ?

Oh.

His body was kind of out of order. Right.

"Oh my gosh," she moaned. "What are we going to do? They can't see you, because if they do, they'll take you, and I don't know – "

"Miss Foster," he said. His eyes were still trained on the window, and he was still tense. "You answer the door and be a gracious hostess. I'll handle myself." His voice had a bite of command in it that she hadn't heard before. It was almost intimidating enough for her to follow the order without question.

Almost.

"What are you going to do?" she hissed. "You're too weak to move or hide or hurt them. Oh my gosh, you cannot hurt them. If you have some freaky energy storage in there that you're going to use to hurt them, then I'm saying no, you can't do that. Can you hide? I need you to hide. You can't just not do nothing and let them find you – "

" _Miss Foster_ ," he said again, turning to her with his eyes flashing. "Calm yourself, woman. Answer the door when they knock and _allow me to handle myself._ "

There was something steely in his face, as though he had resolved something. He looked…like he was concentrating.

"…Okay," she said. Just then, there was a knock. She turned away from him and began walking towards the door. "Okay, Freyr."

She couldn't bring herself to look back at him and see everything that he probably wasn't doing to hide himself. He wasn't physically able to do anything, and he may even want to be seen by SHIELD.

 _I can't lose him,_ she thought. _He is my only possible resource for understanding Yggdrasil and the other realms. I cannot lose him._

She was still thinking it when she opened the door.

* * *

"Dr. Foster," Loki heard from the other room.

"Agent Coulson," he heard Jane respond. "What can I help you with?"

Loki closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Holding his invisibility was already becoming difficult. He felt thin and stretched, as he had recently read one Mr. Bilbo Baggins so excellently put, _like butter scraped over too much bread._ The spell was already pressing down its weight upon him, and the pain was building. He bit his lip to keep from making a sound.

From his perch on the couch, he saw Jane and the alleged Agent Coulson walk into the room. He saw Jane's eyes search for him and heard her sigh of relief a moment later. How touching, to know that she hadn't believed him when he'd said he'd take care of it.

"We got readings from this area a week or two ago," Couslon was saying. "Another phenomena, similar to the previous incident, occurred. Are you familiar with what I am referring to? I assume you are, as I'm sure your instruments picked up the same readings."

Jane gave a terse nod. "They did," she said. "May I ask why you are following up on it so late? I'd figured that you'd have been here hours after it happened."

He offered her a thin smile. "We were dealing with an issue in Philadelphia," he said. "It was…difficult to get away. The men outside are the rest of the team from there. We came straight to New Mexico to investigate."

At this point Loki lost the thread of the conversation. He couldn't risk breaking his focus from maintaining his invisibility. Normally, this would have been child's play; unfortunately, he was not feeling quite…as well as normal. His injuries and exhaustion were taking their toll on his magic. A light sweat broke out on his forehead, and he grit his teeth.

He heard bits and pieces of their conversation, but he couldn't bring himself to pay attention to more than he was. "…Yes, I…no, I went by myself…nothing there…no, I'm telling the truth…my readings suggest…sir, I'm asking you to…nothing…a crater…no life forms…no, haven't heard…Asgard…yes…"

He knew not what was said or whom said what, but he breathed a sigh of relief when they went into the other room. As soon as they left, he dropped the illusion. Before, he would never have been so careless, but now, he could not bring himself to continue the spell. It had increased his pain immensely and depleted much of his energy. He felt himself go limp on the cushions.

That simple spell had taken much out of him. It was embarrassing, the drastic effect it had had. His wounds were burning, and he felt slightly nauseous. His head was spinning a bit. When he looked down, his hands were shaking. The fall, then, had stolen much from him besides his physical wellbeing. He knew not if this newfound struggle with magic was directly tied to the state of his body or if something in Yggdrasil had harmed it. All he knew now was that he was so tired, and all he wanted to do was rest.

He knew not how long he stayed still, looking at the ceiling above him. He heard nothing more from the two humans in the next room. He wasn't sure if he could had he tried. He was stuck between wakefulness and sleep and everything he saw was blurred around the edges. He thought of nothing, any occasional thought he had consisting of one word, constantly repeating:

… _Weak…Weak…_

Yes, he was weak now, wasn't he?

He decided to think on it nor more for the time being.

Eventually, he heard a faint "Freyr? He's gone now."

He tried to sit up and found that he could not bring himself to. He also found that he did not care one way or another.

He heard Jane give a small shriek when she entered his room and saw him lying there. "Oh my gosh!" she said. "How on earth…?"

 _No, ridiculous mortal,_ he wanted to scoff. _What I did was not of earth._ But he was already fading away into an exhausted oblivion.


End file.
